31 December 2010

yesterday, i was quite surprised to find in my mailbox a copy of i, coleoptile, ann cotten's new book published by broken dimanche press. it's got interesting black and white photography by kerstin cmelka in it, and, slightly more importantly, ann's poetry. i can't read all this now, but it looks like i'd like it, and i already wonder who enzo is (again: no time to ponder, remember, guess). my favorite line: and so i felt like jelly, like / I had been here before. let's hope i'll get around to writing a proper review sometime.

the people at the residenz verlag, who were kind enough to provide me with a copy of ulrich ladurner's eine nacht in kabul last september already (yes, i have been INTERESTED in this book!), still haven't gotten theirs. but i haven't forgotten about it, and at least i can mention here now that i like the author's dedication to alle, die den krieg nicht hinnehmen.

19 December 2010

die klappentexterin asked me for a book recommendation for her readers, and i suggested this. unfortunately, it doesn't seem to be available in english translation anywhere (is this really possible?), but there are two of her poems on her EN wikipedia in any case.

06 December 2010

parlandopark is a new series of events. this is their official newsletter or something. please note that i'll be reading with berlin's poetry kings and queens monika rinck, steffen popp, hendrik jackson, nora bossong, johannes hupp und christian filips. this is a FREE EVENT, there is NO COVER CHARGE.

29 September 2010

DIE ZEIT has an interview with josef haslinger who is both the managing director of the Deutsches Literaturinstitut in Leipzig and also a writer. in that interview he claims that professionally training authors in writing schools like his own is closing a quality gap in german literature. and better yet, he blames us individuals and for-profit literary magazines for not educating younger writers better - in our free time, of course:

i think he purposely ignores economic realities here. people need to go to work these days, unlike in the seventies, when hanging out in smoke filled uni corners was hip. there is not enough governmental funding for literary endeavours. yadda yadda. i'm boring myself with the perpetual sermon of a self-sustaining literary system, no courage to try new things and the ongoing homogenization professionalization of writing styles. he can tell me about his students' striving for originality all he wants - they voluntarily entered an institution whose aim it is to prepare them for a literary market that resorts to celebrating people like helene hegemann for originality. good for her, i guess, that at least she never attended a factory school like that. in any case, a better title for this post would have been "writing schools must close market gaps or else they'll be shut".

20 September 2010

i'm sorry to announce that as of now, anonymous comments are no longer possible on WOAW. this is long common on other blogs and down to all the spam i've been receiving lately. please keep participating though. thanks for sharing your thoughts.

18 September 2010

last night i attended my first literary event in forever (after an unsuccessful try on thursday, when we had originally planned to visit the literaturwerkstatt for the klagenfurt-nachlese but spontaneously decided to go for dinner instead): sascha lobo's premiere reading of his novel Strohfeuer. at a whopping 8€, cover charge wasn't cheap for all those who had missed the chance of getting free admission via sascha's twitter, and you know i get very displeased when unhappy with prices. and now comes the but: sascha's reading was one of the most entertaining and diverting i had been to in a long time. in spite of lots of funny car content, which i thought to be the new cat content - or as kathrin put it, cat content for men - and in spite of frequent mentions of hitler and piglets. the latter somewhat reminded me of toni mahoni's recent book Gebratene Störche, but that must have been a coincidence, since toni's book came out only in february of this year and so Sascha couldn't have known, as his should have already been in print at that time. other comparisons included beigbeder's 39,90 - that i remember from working at hugendubel in frankfurt am main, checking out over and over in the fall and winter of 2001. "just a similar topic", in sascha's eyes, and anyways, he couldn't have written his book ten years ago, he first needed some personal distance from the business and bubble and all. and while strohfeuer certainly hasn't reinvented the literary wheel, the excerpts that freshly dyed sascha read were well-written and fun to listen to. rumor has it the first chaper is weak, though, so when at the book store: just skip it. ;)

my head is a half moon
of shoes and of make-up
of clothes sometimes washy
i loaded two piles right two
souls and the bags so my head
is a mountain of glass oh yeah
lamps and ikea has nothing
on what is inside me my table
who's one of my cactus's brothers
i'm fine in my head can you hear
me i'm fine for no parting will
be good enough.

28 August 2010

"For the second time MISS READ has invited international publishers and artists to show their artist books at KW Institute for Contemporary Art in Berlin. As a genre of its own, the artist book reflects contemporary ways of artistic production and publishing to a great extent and also addresses issues of presentation and circulation as well as new strategies of distribution. Presenting a selection of more than 40 of the most active contributors in this field, the festival provides the rare opportunity to encounter and explore the contemporary scene of independent publishing."

12 August 2010

07 August 2010

the years of billions before you have
unended where your hand let go
the linen white i think like everyone's -
you were the deadest glazed and air
at once you dandered out the door a smile
for billions of you before the years ahead
there's so much more to come (i'm thinking
endless silent laughter) than we had -

so push the morellos back into the bush soft
the pedicals moist of the rain still the leaves and
not one single flint stone to rub by the cave and
one sings one another to sleep drawing murals
the spears and the sheep that outrun them . one loses
her way in her very own valley but how to explain that -
there was no torch and no traces of bears just
the standing in front of those walls watching sparks
going up in a turning of ornaments . where did that cave
grow so suddenly out of whose hands glows that light / ]

22 July 2010

on 10 july 2010, i was speaking to a bunch of very clever FU students. the day's topic was narrative identity, so besides technical issues like how does a blog work and what is it good for, we also touched upon topics like does blogging help or hinder my writing and whether i am aiming at constructing a certain online image of myself, and if so why. i had prepared a little introduction and a couple of questions i was going to ask (like how many of you blog yourselves?) but didn't, because i forgot. so i had absolutely no idea about their previous social media knowledge and was constantly worried someone would fall from her chair, bored to death and all sweaty, as it was really hot that day. but as far as i could tell, christoph ribbat, one of the other two invited speakers, was the only one who fell asleep. into some microsleep maybe, but still, he was silently snoring right into my face. okay, i thought, this is it, you're in asia and that's how it goes here, no face-loss, it will never matter. i really liked christoph and his talk on alison bechdel's graphic novel 'fun home' and i think he got along with me okay, too, so i thought, well, let the man rest and hoped no-one would notice. and the students seemed with it, my talk i mean, which was the main thing. after i had finished, they had a long list of questions which i found interesting to answer, and i got very nice e-mail feedback: kerri drew me, complete with tattoo and necklace, and fredi left an encouraging comment. thank you for having me, i'd come back any time!

awakening due to radicalsunshine. dreaming you arethe light spot (native place: - )as core of an endlesslypage filling world and i roll off as one falling pearl and a veryrare echo sings after me alongthe floors until some hole rips open its fauces. i'm giving myself away (you: - )without hidden conditions as well.]

05 June 2010

even the teacher himself gets confused when he gives the example of 'the old boring physics teacher'. according to his own rules written on the board behind him, it would have to be 'the boring old physics teacher' - at least that proves his claim that this clip might of interest for native speakers, too!

30 May 2010

last night i attended a great poetry reading at the literaturhaus berlin, the highlight of which was a reading by oswald egger, the first-ever winner of the recently awarded oskar pastior prize. that prize is a cool prize for two reasons: 1) in his lifetime, oskar pastior saved every penny for a foundation that was meant to financially support 2) experimental, innovative poets. oswald easily lived up to this criterion, as what he read fortright sounded like sylvia plath on LSD: "Ich igelte mich ein wie ein Iltisknauf", "so schopf-, so schädelblanke Felsen", "Ich sah durch die Toten nur Sonne und Knochen, nichts sonst". while oswald's imagery was richer than anything else i had heard in a long time, and while his recital was fantastic, i thought he did miss a timely ending. our minds spun in spite of his (sometimes probably unintendedly) humorous passages, so that following his verbal detours became increasingly difficult.

michael donhauser, who was second to read, had a better gut feeling there. his reading was to the point and sincere. like last time at the lyrikerempfang, it seemed he had dislocated the alphabet in order for it to become landscapes that recall own memories. (work sample.)

franz josef czernin, who had been the first poet to read, struggled with turning the old idea of the four elements (that he chose to wrap in the old corset of the sonnet) into something modern. a highlight: "Mein Schauen ging (...) nicht verloren." thereafter, he presented his edits of three more poems in a slide show. this was very interesting to see at first, but i found that the novelty of the idea wore off quickly - probably because he had up to fifty slides to show for each poem; or maybe because he flicked through them so fast that even when you wanted to follow his wordplay, you couldn't.

28 May 2010

yesterday night i attend a panel discussion on the very broad topic of german translations at the literaturwerkstatt berlin. i'll do my best to give you a quick roundup here.

the discussants were katy derbyshire, who is a professional tranlsator, tilman rammstedt, who won the bachmannpreis 2008 and made this awesome video about his winning story Der Kaiser von China, helge malchow, who is the CEO at publishing house kiepenheuer & witsch (he brought along hist best mate maxim biller), and hans-ulrich treichel who is one of the three heads of the deutsche literaturinstitut leipzig (DLL) and a rather famous author in his own right. moderated by literary critic hubert winkels, who is part of the bachmannpreis 2010 jury, the panel tried to answer the question why so few german publications penetrate the international book market. this question was not answered, of course, but the discussion was still interesting to follow.

malchow explained that the cultural eradication and deprivation during and after the second world war might have caused a backlog with the german people that ultimately led to a great openness regarding all sorts of art and literature. after all, malchow estimated, 50% of KiWi's programme are made up of works written by foreign authors. if it's so easy for them to get published here, why are not half of all published books on foreign markets authored by germans?

certainly not because writers like rammstedt, whose novel has been translated into "six or seven" languages, come to the conclusion that, apart from accompanying commercial aspects, translations "aren't desirable". and probably not because as katy suggested, "german books that aren't about nazis or secret agents just don't interest foreign publishers". they aren't interested, because the limited horizon of our younger authors, as paraphrased by treichel, does not allow for what malchow was looking for in new voices, originality and life experience. (that's what they always say, isn't it, until someone like helene hegemann turns up!) "our authors come to DLL right from school", treichel said, "they shouldn't worry about the literary industry. and anyway, as yet not one newbie has come to me with the desire to be well-known internationally". wow, i thought, these are surprising points from someone dandling one of the largest cradles of german literary talent! only very few people my age that i know have something i would call a locally limited horizon, and most of us put great effort into building international careers. we are interested in many things, and - if i may say so - a far cry from the ethno-centric mindset that might have shaped the thinking of today's average sixty year old.

the assumptions that newer german literature has nothing say just cannot be true. instead, publishers' decisions are influenced by different factors, a kind that, sadly, my generation knows all too well: soft skills and networking! (at this point, bachmannpreis nominee dorothee elmiger taps me on the shoulder, asking whether she could take a look at my event programme? uhm, sure.)

often times translators themselves suggest books they like to their editors, making costly assessment reports redundant for publishers. or it is one particular book that opens a market, like umberto eco's The Name of the Rose that paved the way into the world market for other works of italian fiction.

today, even for internationally established german writers the going is rough: handke, for example, sells only 4.000 novels a year in the US, and these are likely to be the ones that belong to universities and public libraries, malchow assumes. he explains how it is next to impossible to establish accomplished younger writers like christian kracht overseas - not to mention newcomers.

treichel says he once heard people say a book needed to literally travel in order for it to become interesting for the international market (this made me think of crammed and dusty second hand traveller's book stores in south east asia), but we germans "aren't writing to entertain people", after all.

which brings right up the question that i have been asking myself all along: why is no one talking content? katy tried, of course - but has it never occurred to anyone that the world might just not be interested in our often sprawling, precocious content? is intellectualism un-dress up-able?

at least in the US, the number of european translations declines steadily. quite possibly, this has to do at least partly with the global tendency to buy, and thus publish, fewer books. readers nowadays are very likely to gather whatever they're interested in from the internet - aided by services like google books, initiatives like Bachmann Goes Europe and blogs like mine that target culturally interested people across borders (even though my content is berlin-heavy admittedly). also, we must not forget that while the US population is almost four times bigger than ours and therefore should haveat least the same quota of published writers we do, the US already in 2005 only published less than double the number of books than germany did in 2007 (source). [more evidence on my musings here.]

as you can see, the matter is complicated... and who's going to translate this article into german now?

21 May 2010

17 May 2010

this morning while sitting at the doctor's, i received my Flattr invite. i still mustn't type with my right hand, so please just watch the video above to find out what Flattr is all about. i think it's a fantastic service and hope many of you will appreciate the idea, sign up and share the love!

06 May 2010

i have this, so i'm forced to take a break. i mustn't type until further notice. i mustn't type until further notice. i mustn't type until further notice. i mustn't type until further notice. i mustn't type until further notice. i mustn't type until further notice. i mustn't type until further notice. i mustn't type until further notice. i mustn't type until further notice. i mustn't type until further notice. i mustn't type until further notice. i mustn't type until further notice. i mustn't type until further notice. i mustn't type until further notice. i mustn't type until further notice. i mustn't type until further notice.

27 April 2010

26 April 2010

Post aus Südost is an interesting new project: an online magazine for poetry from southeast europe both in its original language and in german. the first issue still reads like a student newspaper (see this simple, but touching poem), but who knows what might become of it later. plus, one can never have enough online poetry, right?

18 April 2010

15 April 2010

in front of an audience of about forty people, catherine hales launched her poetry collection 'hazard or fall' at cosy café hilde yesterday night [see this post], and i thought her reading was very satisfactory: not too long, not too short, neither boring nor incomprehensible (although reading somewhat slower would have helped). i like catherine's rather prosaic style, it just makes enjoying her poems so much easier - especially when they were put into context through little personal anecdotes: knowing, for example, that as a kid catherine wanted to become an archaeologist, sheds a whole new light on her work, too.

highlights:'it's when you part your lips that the problems begin''our lives crossed like the shadow of a bird in flight' 'why have a thousand gods when one is one too many?''the creatures crawl into their caves, expire'

12 April 2010

this event!!! HAS BEEN POSTPONED !!!is particularly interesting, as it addresses an important topic: how much religion is good for our kids? helge nyncke, the illustrator of "Wo bitte geht's zu Gott?", will be reading from the book that the German Federal Ministry for Family, Seniors, Women & Youth tried to index because of its critical engagement with religion (but didn't succeed! check this brief spiegel article), and also from „Susi Neunmalklug erklärt die Evolution“.instead there will be some discussion about the future of the catholic church. no reading now!!! 14 april 2010, 6.30 pm, club der volkssolidarität, torstr. 203 -205, 10115 berlin - prenzlauer berg

WORTHY ALTERNATIVE --> catherine hales will be launching her new poetry collection 'hazard or fall' at café hilde. i got a little sneak peak of her work the other day and can assure you that, if you like english poetry, you will enjoy this event. try gistsandpiths for some samples of her work. plus, from what i can tell, two thirds of the berlin poetry scene will assemble there.wed, 14 april 2010, 7.30 pm, café hilde, metzer str. 22, 10405 berlin - prenzlauer berg

10 April 2010

i was meaning to attend the danaghie & co poetry reading last night so that i could write about it here, but the restaurant took forever to prepare our food (just around the corner! we sat down at 8 pm!) and when we got to the location at 9.30 pm it was packed and there was no way to get in without interrupting. [phew, that was a long sentence!] so i just waved hi to kim through the window and buggered off... what a shame, sorry joseph!

02 April 2010

01 April 2010

as you might have already noticed, i've added a twitter widget to the blog's sidebar. if WOAW loads a little slower on your browser now, that's the reason. the idea was to keep you up to date with thoughts and news that never become blog posts even if you aren't on twitter yourselves. if you are on twitter already, but too lazy to check back on my page every day, this feature might be of use to you, too. i also plan to update the sidebar altogether some time later this year, sort through the link list, add blogs like ron winkler's, that kind of stuff. don't worry if WOAW looks a little different from time to time, i'll be sure to let you know when i'm done...

29 March 2010

in my mail today i received three voucher copies of the current lauter niemand 10th anniversary edition. i've been featured with a long poem i wrote in 2007 called "tanz aus narkose", alongside people like johann reißer and monika rinck.

i dug out the last paragraph of an older version of that poem for you:

i in tulle sheets varnish dress gnaw on the window frame breaks light in triangle rays dust turns blinds and i urban it ur-bacterium wanna be under water over surface molecule wanna be taught by you with lips pursed how the fish make mow algae inbetween holy corals dance fever pirouettes with you sink into deep sea pillow trenches resurge through the night once more as steam once more as rain alight...]

we'd seen a constellation:there ends the world and the fistthat's been holding the cables that sustain our lives has been male . one was a hole chewed into some wallfive deutschmarks wide for ratswho knew the wires praised all rubbish into highest spheres .at the very back an anxious girlgave away secrets on being terrestrial .]

27 March 2010

26 March 2010

this week, i went to two readings: alistair's and peter's, and the one alexander gumz organised for the launch of his and moritz schramm's ny tysk poesi anthology (arena verlag, kopenhagen, 2009). both were good events and sold out deservedly so.

dialogue berlin provided a great venue, and its owner sharmaine was a great hostess - i'm sure we'll be hearing much more about her events and initiatives soon. i always enjoy literary events in english, as the authors and audience tend to not take themselves as seriously as most germans: a little more fun, a little less intellectual masturbation... which takes me right to the reading on wednesday:

like i said before, the line-up was impressive - and its proximity to KOOKbooks undeniable. one gets the impression that alexander gumz has a couple of people on his speed dial that he rings up whenever reading slots need to be filled. while this is understandable, i would have loved to hear people like raphael urweider or nico bleutge read for a change, poets that are also featured in the anthology, but that you don't hear of as much.

24 March 2010

WORDS ON A WATCH turns three today, and for me that means party introspection: how has the internet changed the way we writers work? as this is quite a complicated question, i'm glad sibylle berg has already answered it generally here, so i'll be ok to just speak for myself:

to me, the internet is

...a space to express myself in a myriad of ways, to get active and launch projects like the #50bookschallenge or girls can blog
...my very own trade fair - networking through facebook and twitter has never been easier than today. i've just started sorting the people i follow into lists, perhaps they're of use to you, too?
...my mobile notebook-anthology-brain-hard drive-event calendar-desk-gallery. to me, the web is a very visual place that i like to hang out in
...a motivator to get things done. as is my readership. i think that if your number hadn't gone up steadily over time, i would have given up long ago
...an ideal place for feedback. both incoming (examples here, here, and there) and outgoing (like here by myself and here by guest commentator oliver bottini). i love feedback and guest articles, so please keep them coming!
...an ideal place for announcements, too, like here and here.*

basically, WOAW is still a personal poetry blog, thick with opinion. if you're here for my poems only and never know where to look for them, click here and save that link. the newest poem will always come first. watch out, though, not all of them are ready for press just yet; from time to time i put up stuff just because i was so glad i had written anything at all. my writing periods are usually intense, as is my current writer's block. i don't have control over either.

i was going to go into last year's WOAW birthday speech a little more, but when i just read it, it sounded awfully negative. i think i was in a pretty bad place then and am very glad that i could move on from there in the second half of 2009. i went on said literary journey to zagreb, spoke to an agent (only to find out my novella was too short for publication still), and got published in important media like lyrikmail. i wonder what 2010 has up its sleeve...

thanks in any case for sticking around!
annina

*it seems like i forgot to annouce that i got published in the current edition of [sic] magazine? oops!

and for everyone who doesn't feel like going to alistair noon's poetry reading on thursday, try fadi saad in berlin - wedding. his reading will take place at the medienhof, a project i freelance with, and it was organised by the kids we teach; the cover charge is only 1 €, and money is generally appreciated there as funding is hard to find even for established organisations like this one. (more info on fadi's book at herder verlag. photo by rebecca @ DIE FREIE LANZE.)

19 March 2010

as a reaction to my post on the lyrikerempfang at berlin's red city hall, michael donhauser was not only nice enough to get in touch and thank me for my words, but in fact he sent me the prose-poems he read that night! i am overjoyed to be able to present to you my favourite one - they aren't available anywhere else on the web, so guess how honoured i feel?

10 March 2010

my friend okey uzoechina from nigeria wrote a poem dedicated to the innocent victims of the recent ethno-religious crises in the country: "November 2009, January 2010, March 2010, and the ones yet to come".

i am publishing it not because okey and i went to uni together, but because his poem is inspired by lacks of effective state politics and their resulting in death and destruction. i am not even going to get started on inter-religious dialogue here - it's just all so sad!

i am ashamed to admit that up to today i was completely unaware of nigerian poetry and that the great majority of it seems to be inspired by politics. award winners remi raji (who writes in english) and wole soyinka (first african winner of the nobel prize in literature in 1986, editor of the praised anthologyPoems of Black Africa) seem to be good further references if you're interested.

in any case, i'd like to thank okey for choosing poetry as one of his ways of working against violence.

THE CROSS & THE CRESCENT

Sacred sires of two great nations
Hostile brothers of long consanguine connexion
Turned uneasy neighbours by sinister suspicion
Tell me, will their wars of vengeance ever cease?

Each takes a different direction
In its quest for the soul’s salvation
Yet both declare for the same destination
Tell me, which will enter the Pearly Gates?

They preach peace and love to all creation
And give opium-soaked minds camouflage consolation
As crimes and wars increase by multiplication
Tell me, wherein lies such gross hypocrisy?

When they partake in political communion
They cross swords with fanatical aggression
Like fiery fiends stirred to destruction
Tell me, does atrocity justify a crown of conquest?

They attract mammoth congregations
With cosy creeds of true redemption
But which will serve the divine intention—